Category: Literature

Wishing you the Seasons Greetings Christmas has almost arrived and the year is almost over. As such I wish every reader of this website the seasons greetings. I hope you will enjoy your holiday. I know I will. I will probably end up viewing The Force Awakens at the cinema for a second time this week. If you haven’t seen it yet, do go! For those who worry about a drought in articles can rest assured. I will post plenty over...

Child of the Daystar, a review Child of the Daystar is a fantasy novel by first time author Bryce O’Connor. The novel has been funded through a Kickstarter project and is the first in a series called The Wings of War. O’Connor freely admits that Child of the Daystar may be his mixtape. On the Kickstarter page he cites his influences to be authors such as Jennifer Roberson and Elizabeth Hayden. Read the rest of the review below to find out if this book is...

Aurora Review Author Kim Stanley Robinson released a new novel this year, Aurora. I considered it time to gather my thoughts and write a review for this very good book that alas also has some major deficiencies. Aurora is set some 500 hundred years into future on a generation ship. It’s goal is the Tau Ceti system. Freya, daughter of Devi, the de facto chief engineer, is struggling with her late adolescence. Her parents are worried she is not up to...

Git and GitHub Yet another chapter for my book on Linux, Programming and Hacking is finished. While I won’t publish them all a few key chapters I have posted online to get feedback. The latest chapter is the last one of the first part of the book. It concludes my description of the Linux command line. The chapter before it does briefly touch upon programming, but part 2 focuses solely on that. This chapter on Git and GitHub connects the two...

An introduction to Object Oriented Design with java I have finished another chapter of my introductory book on Computer Science. This chapter, entitled Object oriented design with java, deals with Object-Oriented Programming (OOP). This concept is illustrated using the Java programming language. For this chapter just like the others a few caveats are necessary to understand. There may be typos and errors. I was pointed to a new of errors in my chapter on shell scripting. There may be some in this chapter as...

I have written a small review for the 1983 movie WarGames. The review is extended by background information on phone-phreaking. The article will eventually become part of my Computer Science book that I am writing scheduled for release in January 2016. Enjoy! There is also a PDF version for download Wargames WarGames Retro Review Back in the early 80’s the first personal computers had only just started to seep through into society. Chances were you didn’t have one, neither did...

The final Dune – Navigators of Dune Next year, May 2016, Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson will release the third and last novel in their Great Schools of Dune trilogy. The last installment is as called Navigators of Dune, as rumored. After having read and reviewed the previous two novels, Sisterhood of Dune and Mentats of Dune I am looking forward to the concluding story. The novels set in the Dune universe written by Frank Herbert’s son Brian Herbert and...

I have finished another chapter for my upcoming Computer Science book. It is an introductory primer to Shell scripting and a little bit of Windows Batch programming. Compared to the other chapters I have released (algorithms and introduction to programming) this one is still rough. I am not quite pleased with it, but I thought I would release it to solicit some opinions. Meanwhile the chapter on Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) is nearly finished. With that one part of the book is...

Yet another chapter of my introductory CS book After I posted Sunday’s sample chapter on programming I thought I would post another that is nearly finished. Chapter 5 deals with common computer algorithms such as bubble sort, quicksort and the principle of recursion. The chapter is entitled ‘Introduction to Algorithms with Perl’. As you may guess, it is written in Perl, instead of Sunday’s chapter which was in Python. My strategy is to make readers acquaint with as many important programming languages as possible. Perl...

Python programming The text below is a sample chapter of a book on the Linux command line, programming and hacking that I am writing. It is tentatively scheduled for release in January 2016. If you find any typo’s or blatant errors please feel free to email me and I will make corrections. Please note this chapter is intended for those new to programming, so I may generalize or omit details for clarity and brevity. There is also a PDF version with syntax highlighting – Python programming...

The Medusa Chronicles Hot after the release of his novel Poseidon’s wake and his short-fiction Slow Bullets famed SF author Alastair Reynolds has another book almost ready to go. It is entitled The Medusa Chronicles and it was co-written with another famous SF author, Stephen Baxter. The story is a sequel to the Arthur C. Clarke novel A Meeting With Medusa, published in 1971. The novella served as inspiration for the space dwelling creatures from the Star Trek TNG pilot...

The Girl In The Spider’s Web Review! Finally after 8 years and almost 11 years after writer Stieg Larrson died a new novel in the Millennium Series has been released. This fourth novel, The Girl In The Spider’s Web, is not the fabled lost story of Larsson but has instead been written by David Lagercrantz. Premise The story continues some years after the last novel. Millennium is yet again struggling as investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist reluctantly embraces the truth that he has become a...

Star Wars Dark Disciple Review + Giveaway On the road towards Star Wars Episode 7 slated for December 18 LucasFilm is releasing new novels to fill in the storyline. I already reviewed Lords Of The Sith and gave it an average score. For a title as catchy as ‘Lords Of The Sith’ both Darth Vader and Darth Sidious were notably absent for most of the story. Can Star Wars Dark Disciple by Christie Golden do better? The title, Dark Disciple, indicates the...

Review of The Fifth Heart by Dan Simmons Ever since the copyrights to the first batch of Sherlock Holmes stories ended some years back the market has been flooded with non-canon fiction. This time it is famed author Dan Simmons who has written a Holmesian historical epic. The author of Hyperion, The Terror and Ilium manages to impress with a story in which both historical and fictional characters take center stage. This is my Review of The Fifth Heart by Dan Simmons,...